


Two To Tango

by Merixcil



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Intention to cheat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 21:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10907505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Angelica meets Jefferson in a salon in Paris, and it's all downhill from there.





	Two To Tango

Meeting Thomas Jefferson feels like falling in love, a little bit with him and a little bit with herself. Angelica is full of questions, arguments she’s imagined the two of them having with girlish glee as she suffers through the more dreary aspects of domestic fortitude. She doesn’t get to give voice to any of them though, because he smiles at her and it feels like the world might fall away.

In time she will learn how to keep up with his charm and argue her way around his smile. Most days she doesn’t want to, but learning to make that leap is one of the most useful lessons Angelica will ever teach herself. For now, she cannot help but be drawn in by the way one side of Jefferson’s mouth lifts further than the other, baring bright teeth below hooded eyes.

She is lost. It’s a different sort of lost from what she felt when she first spied Alexander Hamilton across a crowded bar. He had been nice enough to look at but it had been his mind that made her heart beat faster. Jefferson is fiercely intelligent in his own right, perhaps even more so than Alexander, but their attraction is less intellectual.

Angelica has always been a woman of selective tastes. If she were a little more self conscious she might be embarrassed at how easy it is to trip over her tongue at the sight of Jefferson’s smile, like he’s already caught it between his teeth. Mutual attraction, plain and simple.

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

They’re in a salon on the Champs Ellysees. The ceiling is decorated with gold trim and the carpet is thick enough to sleep on. It’s a very nice place. Angelica blushes and lets out a laugh unbecoming of a woman of her mental fortitude. “Mister Jefferson, I’m here for a drink.”

“Thomas,” he corrects leaning forward to catch her hand and bring it to his mouth to kiss. His hair falls forward, a soft cloud against the high neck of his shirt, purple tailcoat discarded on the seat next to him.

She thinks about it for a minute, then decides he doesn’t look like a Thomas. Thomas doubted, and the man before her doesn’t look like he’s second guessed himself in all his life.

“Jefferson.” Angelica says, more firmly than she feels. She has to take a seat before her knees give out, “I’m familiar with your work.”

It’s impossible not to compare his handsomeness to Alexander’s. Jefferson leans forward, a scant inch too close for propriety and raises his eyebrows into a perfect bow. He has charisma and confidence like nothing Angelica has ever seen, and she doesn’t know whether she wants to fall into it or take it as her own. In this incidence, her indecision is her downfall. Jefferson steps into a space in the conversation she didn’t even realise she was leaving and takes control.

He quizzes her on everything from political standing to agriculture, at first with the humour of a man setting out to test what he believes is a lie. There is a part of Angelica that wants to scream every time she is doubted, and it rises up now, contending with the haze of sexual combustability that clouds the forefront of her mind. It leaves some of her arguments flirtatious and turns some of them wicked sharp. She more than proves she’s read his book and then some, and then the wold shifts beneath her.

“I hold these truths to be self-evident,” Jefferson starts. He is so close that she can smell the wine on his breath, and it’s not enough to be offered a sip from his glass. “That all men are created equal.”

“And women?” Angelica breathes.

She doesn’t expect anything from him. Few enough women have confidence in the possibility of an equal standing with their menfolk. The men themselves are clueless. Jefferson at least considers the matter, tipping his head like he’s rolling the thought through his mind.

He fixes her with a considered stare, “What about them?”

“We have minds! And body enough to do the work you men cannot when you take to your books.”

Jefferson laughs and Angelica can’t tell if he’s astonished she would speak on the matter or mocking her. “Yes, I suppose you do. Tell Me Miss…”

“Church.” Angelica starts. Her stomach tries to drop away with the realisation that her name has proved so far completely irrelevant to their discussion, while Jefferson’s standing is a source of great interest to her. “Mrs Church.”

“Really?” Jefferson’s smile slips a fraction.

“My husband is in London.”

“I see.”

He frowns, clicking his tongue and staring at a point somewhere past Angelica’ shoulder. It’s stupid, to be so hurt, but she desperately wishes it wouldn’t matter, that marriage could be an innocuous thing that need not come between the interpersonal passions of others.

In that moment, Angelica knows she’s going to take Thomas Jefferson into her bed if it kills her. Just to prove that she can, just to look Alexander in the face when next they meet and know that he was too small a man to have it all.

She very much doubts any part of Jefferson is small, not when he hops off his chair and stands before her. Over six foot with thighs so long and shapely as to look indecent. Angelica suppresses a shudder, along with her disappointment.

Jefferson’s face is blank, “I can’t remember what I was going to say.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Angelica smiles at him, weak at first but finding the confidence to turn her mouth into something sharp and flirtatious very fast. “As I said, my husband is out of town.”

Jefferson’s face freezes, the picture of indifference for all of a second. Then he remembers who he is or why he came here, and she can see his teeth again, worrying at his bottom lip. “Well, Mrs Church, I must be going now. Perhaps I’ll see you in here again sometime.”

“Perhaps you will.”

“If you could arrange to be here tomorrow, I have some books I think you’d enjoy.”

“Same time?” Angelica’s breath leaves her in a rush.

Jefferson positively beams at her. He skips the hand and leans in to kiss her on each cheek, breath wreaking of wine. “Atta girl.”

She watches him leave with a mixture of longing and revolt. Something tells her he is trouble but she cannot articulate the feeling, so she trusts the part if her gut that tells her he will be useful, that he will teach her things she couldn’t teach herself, that he will strip her down and make her anew.

She’s right of course, one way or another Angelica is usually right in the end. There’s more heartbreak and outrage lying down this path than she could foresee, certainly more than she would like, lurking in the dark corners of Jefferson’s smile that she won’t be able to see until she’s far too close.

For now though, she lets her blood sing. John won’t mind too much, she thinks, and if he does, he shall half to learn to live with her choices.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love. Come find me on [tumblr](http://jeffersonhairpie.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/chadfuture_).


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